


you learn to be the things you're not

by polyamory



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Bisexuality, Coming Out, Friendship, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Team as Family, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Penelope Garcia, Trans Spencer Reid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 14:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4567443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyamory/pseuds/polyamory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Spencer starts questioning his gender he's thirteen and has just started university.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you learn to be the things you're not

**Author's Note:**

> beta love as always goes to emerson  
> title is from passenger's "things that stop you dreaming"
> 
> there was a horrible lack of (good) trans fic so here y'all go

Spencer likes to joke sometimes - mostly to himself, really - that he got his first doctorate degree so people would stop calling him 'Miss' or 'Ma'am.' As if it were really that easy to get them to stop misgendering him. But now at least he can say, "It's 'Doctor,' actually."

The first time he starts questioning his gender he's thirteen and has just started university. Leaving high school had been a huge relief but he doesn't really want to get his hopes up about things being different at university. He's still alone, still an outcast, his classmates much older than him, but at least they aren't as cruel as the teenagers at his high school had been.

It's there that Spencer first hears people talk openly about gender and sexuality and it's there he first begins to question himself.

He does research, because how better to deal with the unknown than to learn every last bit about it. As he begins to question his gender and his sexuality more and more he begins feeling ... afloat, lost. It's hard not feeling like you belong anywhere and when that feeling extends to your body?

Making peace with the fact that he's bi is easier than figuring out his gender, but Spencer has never been one for giving up.

His mother notices, on one of her good days, and she eventually gets him to talk about it. His father is already gone at that point and his mother is the person he trusts most in the whole world.

She explains to him that it's completely normal to question these things, that there is nothing wrong with it, or with him. He knows that, of course, he says, but it still feels so good to hear it that there are tears in his eyes.

"Oh, honey, come here," his mother says, pulling him into her arms.

A few weeks later he asks her, hands shaking and palms clammy, to call him 'he' and 'son.'

She helps him cut his hair short, she helps him get rid of the clothes he doesn't want anymore.

She helps, but there are pains even she can not alleviate. As he grows and his body matures he begins to feel body dysphoria for the first time. Up until then he had always been thin and wiry and it had been easy to pass as a boy. Even now his chest is small but every time he looks in the mirror he can see that his body doesn't fit him, doesn't look the way he feels it should.

He isn't sure for a long time, what he wants his new name to be, he just knows he wants a new name, needs the fresh start.

The two names he finally comes down to are Elliot and Spencer, both traditionally 'male' names that are also accepted as 'female' names. Spencer needs the ambiguity because as much as he hates it he's aware that, realistically he won't be able to afford hormone therapy or surgery any time soon.

He saves all the money he can afford to put on the side and finally when he has enough money together he files a petition with the court to change his legal name.

He is reborn as Spencer Reid.

Even now, several years later, Spencer can't wear a binder, not at work. It's too dangerous with the impromptu chases and running they do on the job, never mind getting shot at.

He wears exclusively men's dress shirts, even though they never fit properly because he has to buy them big enough to fit his chest and they always end up too wide around his waist.

He keeps his hair somewhere between short and long, short enough that he is comfortable, but long enough that it's still deemed acceptable by people who see him as a woman.

There are definite drawbacks to working for the government, a definitely not trans friendly workplace.

His team, Spencer isn't really sure how much they know.

Gideon had known, Spencer had told him and Gideon had simply said: "This doesn't change anything, you're still the same person to me." He can't really put his finger on why this reaction frustrated him until later when he tells Hotch.

He figures, as team captain it's information that might at some point be crucial. Spencer knows the chances that withholding this information could place him in severe danger are high but he also knows the statistics and that volunteering this information could be equally, if not more, dangerous.

He knows Hotch, trusts him. Hotch is a good man, still this does little to calm Spencer's nerves.

When he finally gets up the courage to tell Hotch, one night late in Hotch's office, he reacts better than Spencer had hoped.

"Is there anything you need? Anything you need me to do or to change? Anything I should pay attention to?"

Spencer doesn't really know what to say, but he finally knows why Gideon's reply had bugged him, because coming out as trans, it does change things and it should change things.

"What do you want to tell the team?" Hotch asks and when Spencer doesn't say anything he elaborates, "Do you want to tell the team at all?"

I'll figure it out, Spencer says.

Do it on your own terms, Hotch's eyes say.

Coming out to JJ is almost easy. The two of them came out as bi to each other a long time ago and since then he's felt a freedom with her that he hasn't felt since his mom was still at home. The biggest problem is finding the right moment to tell her and in the end the moment comes without him even trying when he makes an absentminded comment about the expenses of changing your legal name in different states around the country.

JJ turns to him, a tiny frown on her face, "How do you- you know what I'm not gonna ask," she shakes her head, a smile playing around her lips.

"Actually," Spencer says, his heart beat picking up as he makes his decision, "I know because I changed my legal name when I was nineteen."

"You did?" JJ asks, surprise evident on her face.

"I did, because, because I am a man and I wanted a new name that reflected that." Spencer's heart is beating rapidly and he has the most absurd thought that if he were a cartoon character he could surely see the outline of it pulsating in his chest.

JJ is looking at him, her mouth forming an 'o' of surprise. "O-okay. What do you, what do you want me to call you?"

"Could you," somehow asking this makes him even more nervous, "could you use he pronouns when it's just the two of us?"

"Yes, of course. And - at work?" JJ asks hesitantly.

Spencer shrugs, trying to play it off. How do you say I don't want you to misgender me but I also don't know if I'm ready to come out to everyone yet?

"We'll- we'll figure it out, yeah, Spence?"

Spencer nods.

"Can I," JJ sounds hesitant, "can I hug you?"

"Yeah," Spencer says, his voice cracks on the single syllable.

From that day on out JJ only refers to him as 'Spencer' at work and Spencer is so grateful for having his best friend supporting him.

One day, not an otherwise remarkable day, Spencer gets his period and there he is, without a pad or a tampon because somehow he'd forgotten he was due. JJ is the person he usually goes to in these situations, because as many facts as his brain can hold without forgetting, his period has caught him by surprise more than a few times. But JJ isn't there - which makes this day different than all the other days.

He weighs the risk and in the end he decides to go to Garcia.

She's holed up in her office, surrounded by the glow of computer screens when Spencer comes in, slightly out of breath, and pushes the door closed behind him.

"Garcia, this is an emergency," he realizes afterwards that this was probably a bad way to start considering the nature of their jobs and what an emergency could usually be. "Please don't ask any questions but i need a pad or a tampon, whatever you have."

"What? Reid, oh my-" Garcia jumps up out of her chair, her hands fluttering about like hummingbirds, "oh my god. I don't- I don't have any." Spencer could almost swear she's blushing.

"What?"

"I don't- I don't need them," Garcia trails off, twisting her pen around and around in her hands.

"Do you, do you know anyone who does?"

"I can ask Elle," Garcia says, brightening up at the prospect of being able to help.

"Oh thank you, Garcia, thank you so much," Spencer almost kisses her when she comes back with a tampon and a pad in hand.

"Hey, boy wonder," Garcia calls later that same day when Spencer is just leaving, "hold the elevator, will you?"

An impending sense of dread pools in the hollow of Spencer's stomach but he sticks his hand out nonetheless, keeping the elevator doors open until Garcia has made it down the hall.

"Are you hungry?"

"Starving," Spencer replies honestly.

"Takeout at my place, what do you think?" Garcia smiles.

"I don't-" Spencer starts uncertainly.

"Please?"

A half hour later they're sitting in Garcia's colorful living room when Garcia blurts out, "So I'm trans."

Spencer looks up from the food he hasn't touched yet.

Garcia swallows heavily. "I'm a- a trans woman," she forges on even though the words sound like they're being ripped from her throat. "I- I've never actually told anyone at work," she looks at Spencer with wide eyes as if she's only just realizing it.

"I'm," Spencer clears his throat awkwardly. "I'm- me too. I mean, I'm a trans man. I've not had surgery yet, I don't even know if I want to, but-"

"Hey, Spencer," Garcia stops him with a hand on his hand, "you don't have to explain yourself to me. I know how it is. You're not sure and then you have good days and you have bad days and everything seems like never ending misery and then the next bill comes around and," she sighs.

"You know what the worst part is?" Spencer says. "I can't even wear my binder to work, too dangerous, so the only time I ever get to wear it is at home and nobody even sees me there. I look the most like, like myself and nobody is even there to see it," he laughs.

"For me it was in summer, when school was out and I spent all my time online and everyone there called me a girl, you know, and I wouldn't really talk to anyone else so it was this blissful oasis and then coming back to school was like a slap in the face because, I don't know, in the summer I almost forgot that other people out there were still misgendering me."

"You know, it's actually amazing that the gender binary is still being upheld by society considering how arbitrary and outdated it is."

That makes Garcia laugh. "Yeah, amazing, isn't it?"

They talk for another hour and then two and when Spencer next looks at his watch it's two in the morning and suddenly he's hit with how tired he is.

Garcia insists he sleep on her couch instead of making the drive home. "It's not worth it, anyway, it'll be quicker if you just sleep here."

That is the first moment he consciously thinks of Garcia as family.


End file.
